Healthy weight & BMI
What a healthy weight range means for adults, how BMI and waist-to-height ratio are worked out, what they cannot tell you, and why children and teens are measured differently.
- Adult BMI Categories Explained: From Underweight to Obesity Class 3
The adult BMI categories used by the WHO, CDC and NHS, the obesity classes, the lower thresholds NICE recommends for South Asian, Chinese, other Asian, Middle Eastern, Black African and African-Caribbean adults, and how to read a result.
- BMI for Children and Teens: Why Percentiles Are Used Instead of Adult Ranges
Why adult BMI categories do not apply to children and teenagers, how BMI-for-age percentiles work, the CDC categories, how the WHO defines overweight in 5 to 19 year olds, which official calculators to use and how to talk about weight with young people.
- How Much Should I Weigh for My Height? Healthy Weight Ranges for Adults, by Height
The healthy weight range for adults at every height from 4 ft 10 in to 6 ft 6 in and from 150 to 195 cm, how it is calculated from BMI, why it is a range rather than one ideal number, and when it does not apply.
- Waist-to-Height Ratio: How to Measure It and What the 0.5 Threshold Means
How to measure your waist correctly, how to work out your waist-to-height ratio in centimetres or inches, the NICE bands (0.4 to 0.49, 0.5 to 0.59, 0.6 or more), who the ratio suits and how it complements BMI.
- What Is a Healthy Weight? What BMI Can and Cannot Tell You
What health services mean by a healthy weight, why BMI is used to screen for it, what it misses (muscle, fat distribution, age, ethnicity), which other measures help, and what affects weight beyond food and exercise.
